


the age of icons

by imposterhuman



Series: angsty post-endgame drabbles [13]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Dubious Morality, Gen, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), villain morgan stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23591974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imposterhuman/pseuds/imposterhuman
Summary: Morgan didn’t look at the memorials. Even ten years after her father’s death, they were as vivid as when they were first painted. Iron Man, with the Infinity Gems glowing in his gauntlet, staring out at her with piercing, peaceful eyes. Behind him, the world he paid his life to save. It was, by all accounts, a beautiful and fitting tribute to Earth’s Best Defender.It made Morgansick.
Relationships: Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark
Series: angsty post-endgame drabbles [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1344337
Comments: 7
Kudos: 97





	the age of icons

**Author's Note:**

> this is a little something thats been percolating since i read [morgan stark's villain origin story](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1370326) by the wonderful [tcnystcnks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tcnystcnks/pseuds/tcnystcnks)
> 
> heres my take on villain!morgan, enjoy :))

Morgan didn’t look at the memorials. Even ten years after her father’s death, they were as vivid as when they were first painted. Iron Man, with the Infinity Gems glowing in his gauntlet, staring out at her with piercing, peaceful eyes. Behind him, the world he paid his life to save. It was, by all accounts, a beautiful and fitting tribute to Earth’s Best Defender.

It made Morgan  _ sick _ . 

She changed the route she normally took to school to avoid it, but there were always more. In another alley, there was a small shrine that she looked away from when she passed. Even her school had a wing dedicated to Tony Stark. She’d skipped every class she’d had in it until administration had seen fit to move her. 

It wasn’t that she hated the memorials; she didn’t, really. She just resented the fact that the world had had more time with her father than she had, and every painting was a reminder. He was their icon, but he was her  _ father _ . And she didn’t have him anymore.

(The first time Morgan got arrested was for vandalism. She’d taken a can of spray paint to one of the memorials. The police let her off with a warning, but the days it took to restore the memorial were some of her lightest days, and it wasn’t long before she was back at it with a fresh can.

She didn’t get caught, the second time.)

If she was being honest, Morgan would say she never knew her father. She knew the curve of his smile from photos, the sound of his voice from videos, but she didn’t know  _ him.  _ Memories of what his hugs felt like had long since faded. Everything she’d never gotten to ask him weighed like rocks in her mind, and it was a weight she could never be free of. She’d never know if he was really, truly proud of her, because he was  _ dead.  _

Maybe it was selfish. Plenty of people lost parents and didn’t resent every reminder of them, or find themselves filled with rage at the sight of what they died for. But Morgan wasn’t plenty of people. Morgan was barely even  _ herself _ ; everyone who looked at her saw her father, saw her mother, saw anyone and everyone but Morgan H. Stark. They saw a hero, or someone who could be one.

Morgan looked in the mirror and saw  _ rage _ . 

Maybe, she mused, she was wired differently. Because where her parents had saving the world carved into their bones, Morgan wanted to watch it burn. She had this festering ball of anger in her chest, and she wanted everyone else to feel it, too. Maybe it was some freak genetic mutation that mixed up hero and villain in her DNA. 

She’d decided it in a holding cell at age fifteen: she wasn’t going to save the world. She wasn’t going to end it, either. She was just going to help it along to its own destruction.

There was a ringing sense of  _ right  _ when she built her first real bomb. It blew even her father’s old weapons right out of the water with its sheer destructive power. Morgan was pretty sure she’d never been prouder than when she saw the explosion, felt the heat on her face and the shockwave blowing back her hair. She was sixteen. 

She didn’t wonder if her dad would be proud of her anymore. She didn’t really care. 

He was good; she wasn’t. He was a hero; she wasn’t. He was  _ dead _ ; she wasn’t. Morgan knew which side of the coin she preferred. Heroes always had such tragic endings. She would know; she’d engineered more than one. 

The world called her  _ villain _ . Her sweeter (stupider) mother called her  _ misguided.  _ Heroes called her  _ irredeemable _ . But none of those things were her. Sure, they fit better than  _ daughter,  _ than  _ future hero _ , but they weren’t what she’d call herself. 

She called herself  _ Morgan _ . 

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos make me happy :))
> 
> come talk to me on tumblr [@imposter-human](https://imposter-human.tumblr.com/)


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